Shooting for a $3,000 Wedding

I will share with you my travels through the wedding planning process while I do my best to stay within a $3,000 budget (excluding our wardrobe and rings).
Hopefully I can help, in some way, other brides who are also on a strict budget during this dreadful economy.

Monday, November 21, 2011

To stay with the storyline, I've included some phtos of a couple of ceremony events. Like his adorable ring bearer grandson bringing us the rings, the ring exchange, the unity candle lighting,and the "it's official" joining of our hands by the minister.
What? We can what? We can KISS now? =) Finally! The moment I've been waiting for. The first official kiss as HIS MRS! YAY!!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

It was so cute to see my Mr-To-Be waiting for me at the end of the aisle.....a big smile plastered on his face, a camera ready in his hand. And as I approached closer, tears welled up in his eyes that went along with a nervous laugh. It was beautiful. My dad passed me over to my soon to be husband, and as we stood with our backs turned to our guests, he started snapping pictures of us and we could hear our family and friends laughing. But this is who we are......and it was all good because they all knew this.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Although it was a gorgeous day, waiting outside in the heat with my dad was not very pleasant. Sweating was not on my itinerary! But there we were....hot in the sun. I only stood outside, because if I had stood in the entryway, guests would have been able to see me.We were using a small boom box for the music. That's what the church uses. I guess because it's a stone structure, the acoustics sound really great and they've never had a need for any type of sound system or P.A. We made a CD that consisted of only 3 songs, and simple directions on when to start and stop playing each song was told to my husband (by me) about 8 or 9 times so that it could be drilled into his head (he's a bit A.D.D.). The directions were also posted on the CD cover and on his son's itinerary with special instructions (he was to be in charge of this). I even asked my husband to please, PLEASE allow his son to read directions on CD and itinerary and not to try and explain them to him himself. You see, my honey is HORRIBLE at directions, and there's a 90% chance of him getting things completely wrong. Well.......things did go badly as far as music and queuing people on when to start processional. My honey (I love him to death) got everything wrong, even with engraving things into his brain. He didn't even allow his son to stop and start the music....he did it HIMSELF! ay,ay,ay! So basically, that is why we stood outside in the heat for so frickin' long. But when we finally got on with it, things went great. (Well, besides the sweat factor!)

In the above picture you will see my honey waiting to take pics of everyone as they walked up.All the guests are patiently waiting (especially because of the music and queuing issues)........First my mom and step father........followed by flower girl, flower girl's escort and ring bearer. Really in no particular order.....we're just lucky there was cooperation with them all going up the aisle! My flower girl (granddaughter) was completely against having any part of being the flower girl. She even threw a couple of petals....wow! We were very proud of them. Of course, I didn't get to see until late that evening from the video my honey (and his daughter) made. You can see his daughter in the second set of pictures maneuvering the camera.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

In this next collage you will find my DIY bouquet and DIY boutonniere.The bouquet had a blend of silk dark purple flowers, brooch pieces, feathers, and various handmade flowers from different materials. I also made pom pom "dandelions" from yarn which you will later see incorporated into other decor. I made the handle wrap from a small lace cloth table runner I found at a generic dollar store. I cut it in half, then folded that in half, then wrapped it around the base. I then added a wide ribbon at the base of the flowers, and crisscrossed a thin decorative ribbon along the handle. I used a "silk bouquet foam top" handle.....it had fake stems built in. You just add silk flowers. To make it cost me about $20. This was not my throw away bouquet. The throw away was real flowers.....the ONLY real flowers that were in any part of our day. I'll have pics of that in a later post.My "something borrowed" was the dragonfly pin at the top of the handle that I borrowed from my mom.I made the picture charms (my first and only attempt at these thus far) which included, from top to bottom, my husband's mom (who passed away almost 2 years ago), my father's mom, and my mother's mom. I REALLY love the way these came out! I feel it's my best project ever. Maybe because it's such a sentimental thing.You know, handmade "fake" flower bouquets are not for everyone. We all have our preferences, likes, dislikes and attitudes & such. When I first told my sister that I was making a bouquet from fake flowers (I already knew she had attitude against fake flowers) she scoffed. When she finally saw it on my wedding day, she said, "I take it all back". That made me smile. Not that I really cared what people thought. After all, it was MY wedding, and MY bouquet and I wanted things MY way. But like I said, I know that everyone has their own preferences, and I don't think anyone should be knocking other people just because they don't like the same thing they like. Individuality.........it's part of what makes life so fun! OK....so let's continue.I made bouts for my Mr., my dad, and our ring bearer. They're all basically the same with the exception that the ring bearer's is smaller, and my Mr.'s has a little something extra in it.My mom's corsage was on the last post I shared.~~~~CLICK ON PICTURE BELOW TO ENLARGE~~~~

Hello all. I know it's been a very long time since I've actually blogged, and all I can say is I'm sorry. This here is my first recap of the wedding. I didn't really know where to start, and I will probably be all over the place with this, but for this first post I will be recapping the church set up (the day of) and getting ready for the ceremony. I really didn't feel the need to go into make up, hair, etc. because I did my own at home in a big rush! More about that later.I've gotten a bit lazy when it comes to blogging, so I've arranged the pics as collages.....I hope you don't mind. OK....so let's start. We were married on September 18, 2010. The weather was a very nice and comfortable 86 degrees.We were married in a very old stone church that my dad's side of the family has attended for generations. In fact, my grandmother lived right next door to it.The church has been there since 1888.The Pastor was to meet us at the church to let us in to decorate at 2:30. But I think he didn't show up until about 2:55......right about the time I was scheduled to start getting ready. But ok......it's a good thing I had minimal decorations for the church. My 28 year old daughter met us there and was able to help out decorating. Thank goodness! And of course she brought her 4 year old daughter (my flower girl/granddaughter) and I of course brought my 13 year old daughter/granddaughter (I adopted her when she was 2). She was appointed as the Flower Girl's Escort. Such a prestigious title. ha! We just needed to ensure that the flower girl would make it down the aisle. You see, when I first asked my darling granddaughter to be my flower, she was animatedly against it. I told her she would be wearing a beautiful Cinderella dress, I showed her videos on YouTube of flower girls walking down the aisle, I begged and pleaded, tried guilt trips.....you name it! And still....NO! I don't want to be a flower girl! So I basically had decided that we would have to trick her. Long story short, she did wonderfully and had full knowledge of what she was going to do. YAY! ~~~MAKE SURE YOU CLICK ON PICS TO SEE LARGER~~

So in the above pic, you can see her sitting on the bench and waiting to get changed into her dress. But first, setting up. You can see my 13 year old putting the signs on the pew bows. I really didn't spend much time or effort on the pew bows. I just bought the Dollar Tree bows, and added lavender tulle to them. The signs were very simple.....card stock and ribbon. My Mr. ran the simple runner that I had gotten from LinenTablecloth.com down the aisle.While they did that, I was decorating the entryway.

I put out the layered programs that I made, the bubbles I had decorated, the Tears of Joy tissues I made, the guest book I had made at Photoworks.com. They had a coupon last year for a free book, so I jumped on it! I also put out pictures of our grandparents and parents on their wedding days. I especially love the one that has my grandmother and grandfather exiting this very church on their wedding day back in 1927. After decorating, we headed to a small church reception area to get dressed. It was just a few steps away. When we walked in, we noticed that it was set up for some sort of reception. I wasn't told about this. All of the areas I was planning to have photo ops in were completely changed. There had been a perfect corner in which to take pictures, but now that was gone. Oh well.....

So Alayla quickly got dresses in a corner....hiding from everyone. She's so cute, and she actually really seemed ready for her part! So now it was my turn. My daughter and Mom helped me with a few things.Ah....I feel like a princess! Good thing I brought a small mirror......hey, ya gotta make do with whatcha gots! lol I made my necklace, by the way. It was during crunch time, so nothing fancy. Seeing as I had never made any jewelry before, I thought it came out pretty good. I had planned to do a much nicer one, but I'm lucky I made one at all. I really don't even know why I was so determined to make my own.....darned blog world!I made my shoe clips, but somewhere, somehow between the ceremony and reception I lost one. grrrrrrr........you can see that I had lost one in the Mr & Mrs Shoe Shot (coming later). Grrrrr.....Well anyway, I added little blue beads to my garter for my something blue. My 13 year old (Sunshine) helped put my shoes on while Alayla sat patiently with "Baby", her giraffe that she never leaves home without. After I was ready, we had time for some pics. My sister and nieces joined us.You can see the corsage that I made for my mom. I used a lot of the same elements for the corsage, boutonnieres, and my bouquet. Yup, I made my own bouquet too! I think my next post will be closeups of my bouquet, so it won't be as looooooooooooong as this post.Sorry about that, but you seemed bored. hehepictures taken by:Sweet As Pie Weddings

Yes, I did end up hiring a photographer after all. I got a great deal.....all pics shot, unedited, all on dvd. So, in other words......I had to do any enhancing, color adjusting, etc. that needed to be done on the pics (which I love to do anyways!).

Monday, September 13, 2010

...............of the die cut business cards from Uprinting is Shanna (Miss Arkansas Bride) who said, "I would probably use them for photo sharing cards at our wedding.".Congrats to you Shanna! You should be hearing from Uprinting soon.